A marital crisis in the House of Almaviva - and both the Count and his Countess are comical victims worthy of pity. The marriage finished both of them off, they are numb to each other. And ready to have sex with anyone, even their own spouse. They are paralysed; they resemble the broad, whitewashed walls of their completely unfurnished country estate on whose well-lit staircase they linger yearningly, always seeking a willing body. But nothing works. Because both are much too uptight and wrapped up in manners in order to un-self-consciously approach anyone.



Dorothea Röschmann (Countess Almaviva), Bo Skovhus (Count Almaviva). All images © Monika Rittershaus, courtesy the Salzburg Festival

It is the woman who most suffers from lack of love. Dorothea Röschmann portrays a timid, slowly ageing Countess who is putting on some love handles, and so accustomed to kowtowing before her Count and master that she is hardly able to protest against his lack of interest in her now. Only in rare moments does she let go. And then she smooches uninhibitedly with the page Cherubino (Christine Schäfer). With such abandon, in fact, that it is even embarrassing to the uninhibited maidservant Susanna (Anna Netrebko), herself no stranger to the trappings of Eros. Perhaps Susanna finds it so embarrassing because she blithely proposes to the husband of the Countess, and fully and naturally yields to his come-on.



Anna Netrebko (Susanna), Bo Skovhus (Count Almaviva)

In fact, the Count (Bo Skovhus) is no Don Juan. Whenever a new woman comes too close, his nervous tic acts up. Then, plagued in advance by guilt feelings, he has to wipe imaginary drops of sweat from his skin - just as Lady Macbeth rubbed endlessly on her equally unreal flecks of blood. The fact that Susanna is more fascinated by the always appropriately decorated, if slightly inhibited Count than she is by her future husband, Figaro, may have to do with the fact that the character and social standing of Ildebrando D'Arcangelo makes him far less interesting than his boss, even though he looks jaunty and sends mighty tones reverberating through the room. That is why director Claus Guth denies Susanna & Figaro loving proximity, intimate understanding and a shared future.



Ildebrando D'Arcangelo (Figaro), Uli Kirsch (Cherubim)

That's fully in accord with conductor Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who from the outset insists that no wedding actually takes place in Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's "The Marriage of Figaro" - but rather that one interruptus follows the next, and that this pursuit has been under way for quite some time. For so long, in fact, that its tempo has become decidedly slow-motion, and every revolutionary impetus gives way to a no less dangerous private simmering. Harnoncourt and the Vienna Philharmonic, which brilliantly executes the conductor's iconoclastic presentation, view the "Figaro" score as if through an oversized lupe, which unsparingly and in loving detail uncovers the dark sides of this "opera buffa." And so the musicians reveal only the suffering of life, the frustrations of sexuality, the crucifixion of boredom, and disappointment in onesself.

The overture drags. Its opening unisono runs, noted in presto, do not point to any kind of societal change, or any new image of a humanity marked by flexibility. Rather, these runs are the muscle-flexings of disoriented people with no future. Playing loudly in this way, the musicians put a strain on the pleasant and clear acoustic of Salzburg's new House for Mozart, launched as an opera venue with this Figaro. Harnoncourt is a stranger to comedy. So he pushes a sardonic, satyr's game of handicapped hedonism. This musical analysis of society mercilessly drags latent sadism into the light of day, a sadism that librettist Lorenzo da Ponte produces through repeated, serial prevention of marriage and liberating sex.



Anna Netrebko (Susanna)

Here it becomes clear that Mozart and de Sade were more than just contemporaries: they shared the same bleak, pessimistic view of the world. Claus Guth willingly comes to the aid of his conductor. He too has no time for comedy, slapstick, over-the-top joviality, cheap laughs or stereotypes. Instead he attempts to sketch out the characters, with a reverent glance at the mature Goldoni ("La serva amorosa"), Chekhov and Ibsen. The costumes by Christian Schmidt fit in well, also referring back to the 19th century. But what Guth is doing is a far cry from realistic theatre. With rare talent, he conceives the ensemble pieces and arias as spaces for the soul - giving images to the emotion in the music. He choreographs the pieces, with many light changes and stylised gestures - at times coming dangerously close to an all-too-cheap symbolism. For him, the arias are not the expression of individual feelings, but human experiments, investigations into the workings of the psyche.




Anna Netrebko (Susanna), Dorothea Röschmann (Countess Almaviva)

And so a second Cherubin (Uli Kirsch), invented by Guth, dances acrobatically through the scene – the antique god of love, Amor. He follows closely on the host's heels, enticing the women into "liaisons dangereuses." When the Almaviva household is laid waste to by a deadly, crippling demon, he attempts to infuse it once more with the breath of life. In vain. Even his truest ally, Christine Schäfer as Cherubino, falls down dead. In this well-sung to very-well sung – and always brilliantly-played – ensemble opera, Schäfer is true ray of light. She is the exceptional being, the object of all desires. She gives her all to this pubescent boy, she makes first love tangible. Uninhibited excitement, the scent of women, eroticism, sex, seduction, she sings it all. Her voice is a sigh, a scent, a gentle stroke, a caress. When Christine Schäfer bows her head for the last time, a barely hidden cry of rapture escapes from the collective soul of those present. This Cherubino has already made it to a realm still aspired to by the other, more mature, singers.



Uli Kirsch (Cherubim) and Christine Schäfer (Cherubino)

Yet he lacks the pragmatism, and the naturalness, of the carnal Susanna played by Anna Netrebko, here every bit a member of the ensemble, not at all a star. Her beautiful, softly-rounded voice and her sublime gracefulness testify to unforced naturalness. Christine Schäfer, however, knows that love is not natural: it is a grace that propels those blessed with it into the most unnatural states of ecstasy and rapture. Even Dorothea Röschmann's Countess knows that, and suffers unspeakably from not being able to give herself up to the feelings churning within her as Cherubino can. She is the true tragic figure of the evening, while her husband, in his vain attempt to maintain countenance and propriety, cuts a comical, ninny-like figure. Both in his movements and his voice, Bo Skovhus has the talent and the charm of a whimsical klutz. As is generally the case with Mozart, the men exist perfunctorily, while the women come to terms with life itself.

That also goes for the wheelchair-bound bon vivant Bartolo (Franz-Josef Selig), the underhanded Jesuitical Basilio (Patrick Hencken), it goes for gardeners (Florian Boesch), judges (Oliver Ringelhahn) – as well as for the impetuous Marcellina (Marie McLaughlin), who sings her way clear of ghoulish frumpiness. And it goes for Barbarina (Eva Liebau). For all intents still a child, she has long known that to get the man of your life, you simply have to take him. The first two acts pass in this way, a musical and dramatic stroke of genius.




The cast: Patrick Henckens (Basilio), Franz-Josef Selig (Bartolo), Marie McLaughlin (Marcellina), Bo Skovhus (Count Almaviva), Uli Kirsch (Cherubim), Anna Netrebko (Susanne), Ildebrando D'Arcangelo (Figaro), Dorothea Röschmann (Countess Almaviva)

Certainly, the evening doesn't fall apart after the intermission. It doesn't even come down a notch. Yet it never manages to relive the grandiose heights it hit at the beginning. Harnoncourt and Guth shot their bolt in the first act, and now they get lost in unvaried, diffuse repetition. And so the increasingly desolate personal stories in the score are not reflected in the performance. The series of five (!) solo pieces by the protagonists, absolutely untypical for this piece, comes to a head and then congeals in an almost sedate waxwork of cumbersome, unwieldy images. After such an ebullient evening, the audience leaves the theatre with the somewhat unsatisfying feeling that a little more was promised that could be delivered in the end.

"Le Nozze di Figaro" runs until August 13, 2006 at the House for Mozart in Salzburg.

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The article originally appeared in German in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on July 28, 2006.

Reinhard J. Brembeck is classical music editor at the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

Translation: Toby Axelrod, John Lambert.